Supporting your pharmacy needs analysis

If you’re putting together a pharmacy needs analysis (PNA), you need to have an overview of the current status of pharmacy services in your region, so you can identify gaps in provision. SHAPE can help.

We’ve now added pharmacy opening times to SHAPE, so you can track what days pharmacies are open, and what times. This can help you identify locations which have evening or weekend gaps in pharmacy accessibility.

To see pharmacy opening times in SHAPE, simply select the pharmacy you want to check and open the NHS profile tab.

SHAPE also has further information that can help inform your PNA. You can also see a pharmacy’s address and dispensing activity, including the GP practices which have issued prescriptions.

When putting together your PNA, you also need to know which pharmacies are providing additional services, and how successful they are at providing these services to the community. We’ve recently enhanced the pharmacy information you can see on SHAPE, including seeing pharmacy contraception service data and hypertension services.